AN UNUSUAL TYPE OF KERATITIS ASSOCIATED WITH EXPOSURE TO N-BUTYL ALCOHOL (BUTANOL)

We have recently had the opportunity of studying an unusual type of corneal lesion, presumably due to butanol (n-butyl alcohol), which affected a considerable proportion of the workers in a local rubber factory. The only previous report in the literature of ocular disturbances that may have had a similar cause is the description of conjunctivitis in 11 workers, 3 of whom had keratitis, employed in a straw hat factory where butyl alcohol and butyl acetate were used as solvents. 1 Ocular irritation has, however, been recently noted in five local factories in addition to the one here referred to, and a survey of all six outbreaks, showing the relation between butanol concentration in the air and the incidence of ocular irritation will shortly be published by Tabershaw, Fahey and Skinner. 2 INDUSTRIAL BACKGROUND The ocular disturbances with which this report is concerned occurred in a plant engaged in making Army